Where are they???
Let’s recap our path, on a map,
with height and temperature – huge impact on how much you eat (yeah you know
that by now), how many water bags you buy and on the amount (I would even say “thickness”) of mosquito's you meet within a certain amount of time…
But let’s start with our path on
a map, from La Mesa, when we left you last time, to Ibague, where we took a bus for Amenia...
And now some details, muy caliente!!
Ants, mosquito's and first Colombian full moon festival!!
We spent our first night between
Apulo and Tocaima. At 420 m. above sea level. Quite a difference with Bogota and even Sibate (around 2 600 m.)! In
this boiling area, we slept hidden in a finca (farm) lost above a rio. As for most fincas in Colombia, the owner lives in a
big city and hires a tenant to run the place for him. And the tenant is the one
actually living in the finca
In this one, Senior Julio is the tenant. To help him: his 4 sons, a 17 / 19 years old girl with her one month baby and another boy, 21 years old, who left the military school for a couple of months to live with his girlfriend and take care of… his one month baby.
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| Arthur repairing his bike before leaving the finca |
Reaching the place was not easy. First, we had to find a path hidden from the main road. A safety thing… Ok, we found it. All happy, we ride it up - when suddenly, Arthur signals me that there are quite some mosquito's around him. The time for him to say it, my view got blurry: a HORDE of mosquitoes was attacking us.
Thankfully, we are armed: we
dived into our very tidy bags for the strongest anti-mosquitoes ever. About 20
seconds after, the time for us to dig into all our bags (“where the f… is this
f..ing mosquito repellent!?!!”), the mosquito's had finished their dinner…Yes, this is tough man!! But the worst was to come: a very very (very) VERY talkative woman!! (More than me (Anaëlle) - and even more than Jurjen*!!! *Arthur’s cousin). She talked sooooo much, and about the same thing: “It’s dangerous here, and people are thieves, and it’s not safe in the area, and people will try to steal from you, and you can’t trust anyone because people can be thieves, so it’s dangerous, you know… And blablablablabla…” After 10 minutes, Arthur was so hammered that he just let her talk and left the place, without a word. I followed with a nice candid smile.
She was still talking…
But hey, we are brave and
(almost) fearless. Therefore, we went on, ready to defeat all the thieves and
talkative people in the area. That’s how we ended up at Julio’s finca! Julio
did the regular check: “Where are you from, where do you go, why don’t you go
in a hotel, ow, you like Shakira?? etc.” When he felt he could trust us, he
helped us chose the right place for our tent. Hop! We were settled!
A&A and the moon-light shower
Sounds like an X movie or a bad
remake of “Martine dans les champs” – well, it's just about the best shower ever! In this
area of Colombia, the temperature is so high that you start breathing at sunset
– just 35 degrees after 9pm - oef! Time for a good wash! Let’s be clear: the
concept of “shower” differs in Colombia. It depends on the zone you live
in. There are 6 types of zones. Type 1: the concept of shower is “dream of
it”. Zone 6, you can even take a bath WITH warm water – wow! So where we were, zone
1, no doubt, the recipe was simple: a bucket from rain water, soap and two
happy naked Duntchies in the middle of a field, under moon-light - and finally,
you cool down!!
Did you like our Colombian
version of Full Moon festival?? ;-)
(Decency prevents us to provide
you with pictures from this great experience)
Tocaima: a beautiful ride in Colombian nature and a night in Don Pedro's beautiful fields
The day after, we left Julio, his sons, the newly young parents and the mosquito's. And a dying goose – long story (was tough though…).
We had a nice ride down, that we would have enjoyed much more if we had known the steep up-hills waiting for us the following days...
This road was so nice that we had a hard time looking for a place to sleep. We just wanted to go on!
But we finally decided to take a small path in the middle of some fields and started looking for the owner of the place. There we met Don Pedro, as open-minded and welcoming that most of all the Colombian people we met. We had a very nice chat and he suggested us one of the highest point if his finca - with of course a great view!
At moon light
Preparing food - still at moon light
Tocaima: a beautiful ride in Colombian nature and a night in Don Pedro's beautiful fields
The day after, we left Julio, his sons, the newly young parents and the mosquito's. And a dying goose – long story (was tough though…).
But we finally decided to take a small path in the middle of some fields and started looking for the owner of the place. There we met Don Pedro, as open-minded and welcoming that most of all the Colombian people we met. We had a very nice chat and he suggested us one of the highest point if his finca - with of course a great view!
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| At moon light |
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| Preparing food - still at moon light |
3 liters of juices in Agua de Dios
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| Our Jeeps in Agua de Dios - yeah bab'' |
After a warm but good night, we left Pedro and headed on... Agua de Dios!
We didn’t find god neither
drinking water. However, we filled our happy stomachs with 3 liters of 3 different
type of juice. Yep… Let’s put it that way: we were boiling under mid-day sun,
recovering from kamikaze-mosquito attacks and cycling mostly up (as far as we
felt). So when we arrived in Agua de Dios, our mind was quite clogged on words
like “agua / thirsty / drink”. When suddenly, Arthur took action. “I, Arthur Borsboom, go hunt for water, for our survival”. Wow. So he left the camp for mission.
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| Agua de dios Church and statue of the colombian composer Luis A. Calvo |
What about mine, you’d ask? Well, don’t under estimate the hard duty
of insuring the high level of security of our TREK bikes – with children
pushing the buttons of our lamps and dogs checking if they can pee on it!
Thankfully we have a machete… Wisely hidden on a bench in the middle of the
main place, I bravely waited for my hero to come back with water. After 2’30 minutes I
was done waiting so I took picture of the environment (here you go).
And after 15
minutes, my hunter went back with… OK what the heck is this??3 bags full of fresh fruit-shakes - mmmmhh!!!!!!
Full of vitamins, we were
explosively ready to go on. And wow, the road we took was really nice!!
A night in the inner tent
All happy and strong, we couldn't stop biking – also, it was quite flat. Unfortunately, sunset was approaching…
So we had to look for a place to set up our tent. Didn’t take long. We found a
place close to the main road but hidden enough to be secure. Aaaaand hidden
enough to enjoy another full-moon-festival!! For, once again, it was
WAAAAARM!!!!! And because of that, we decided to set up the inner tent only –
since human also need to breathe at night… This move was perfect. We really
slept well. Until 4 in the morning, when some thunder woke us up… From this
moment, we had less than 5 minutes to set up the outer part of the tent – yeah,
you know, this large piece of tissue / material that protects us from the rain.
About awake, we did our best to attach everything on time. For obvious reasons,
I didn’t take pictures of the result.
Anyway, the outer tent did its job and kept us dry – oef!
Anyway, the outer tent did its job and kept us dry – oef!
Because yes, this country is
warm. But it also rains A LOT! And when it rains, you don’t think “wow, that’s
a huge shower!!” No. You think 3 rivers are falling down on you… And you
remember – again – why Colombia is so green.
However, the nice thing is, that even when it rains, the temperature stays high. So you are soaked but still warm. And THAT is cool!! =========>
Heaven-fruit-mix after the steep hill that forced Anaëlle legs’ muscles to surrender
However, the nice thing is, that even when it rains, the temperature stays high. So you are soaked but still warm. And THAT is cool!! =========>
Heaven-fruit-mix after the steep hill that forced Anaëlle legs’ muscles to surrender
As you understood, we had quite some steep climbs…! And need to drink a lot. But water can be boring, even when there is a bit of junk in it because you took it from a so-called potable water tank...
| Not one of our pictures... ...we always eat our cups of fruits to fast to have time to take a picture... |
The good thing is, that fruits are all around Colombia. Therefore we know that we can grab almost everywhere a huge glass of mixed fruits, juicy, tasty and, for us, absolutely exotic! So we did, after a killing climb, that forced Anaëlle’s legs to surrender… She couldn’t even paddle on flat roads!
Thankfully, we had to stop quickly. So we finally rested, in a weird area, very closed to the main road but very well hidden, after a bunker or a something approaching, in the corner of a finca. There again, we enjoyed another “full moon festival”, duntchies’ style J.
The day after, we reached Ibague. From there, the deal was to find a bus to
cross the very steep La Linea to end up in Armenia.
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| You don't see anything? Now think about how the driver could drive on an express mode in this mist and on this road!!! (see next picture) |
We chose to
take the “Bus Express”, thinking that the name meant that there wouldn’t be any stop between Ibague
and Armenia. Well, we should have think more in the “Colombian way”… The bus is
called “express” just because it goes faster… Meaning that the driver goes
crazy on the road…
The bad thing was, that Arthur felt sick and Anaëlle
started to shock in the bus... The good thing is that we met Mauricio! And had a
very good chat during these 3 crazy hours.
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| As you can imagine, this again is not a picture of ours, knowing in which mist we were! |
Finally, we reached Armenia around 7pm. Alive! We took our bikes out from the trunk of the bus, attached our bags and asked a security guard for a cheap hotel around. The guard looked at us, opened his eyes wide when he saw the bikes and said while moving his arms in chaotic movements: “Hotel, there, 5 minutes. Go-go-go, now! Don’t stay here! Dangerous!!” Yep! Welcome in the charming bus terminal, south of Armenia. And indeed, we saw some guys around that we wouldn’t have chatted with… So we hurried up, reached a hotel, threw our bikes in the room and… aaaah time to relax! Let’s take a warm shower – yoohoo!!!!! So, we had everything ready: the soap, the shampoo, the conditioner, a clean towel (a clean towel!!!), the razors and other mower – well, everything!!
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In Armenia, we only stayed a night and a couple of hours. We came back one week after to head on South Colombia. What happened in between - our nights around a cemetery, our sweet host Orlando's and his truculent life, our beautiful hike around Salento, where we met Carlsten and Clara, our days on mountains tops in a coffee farm... - you will read it the next post!
Hasta la proxima!!
A&A
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